


brittle fortune

by bummerang



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, Semi-Canon Compliant, discussion of suicide, set in an alternate nebulous future of v8, what are AUs for if not ~self-indulgence~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:15:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27885838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bummerang/pseuds/bummerang
Summary: “You came back,” she says. She hasn’t moved an inch from her spot.“You knew I would.”“Thousands of years, and you never fail to be predictable in at least this. That has always been your greatest failing, my dear Ozma. Lost causes.” The shadows in her hand swirl into each other before separating into four very familiar forms. “You always try, and you always fail.”She blows the shadows to him, and they fall into nothing at his feet, leaving echoes of laughter. There is a part of him, long since packed into a small box and hidden away deep inside, that feels like it’s splintering.The rest of his soul aches.
Relationships: Ozpin & Oscar Pine, Qrow Branwen/Ozpin, past ozma/salem
Comments: 29
Kudos: 82





	brittle fortune

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely canon compliant up to v8e4? This is an AU of some future point of v8~

The lights are too bright, and the alarms are deafening.

Someone is pulling him—somewhere. He doesn’t know where, he doesn’t even know where he is—

“I have to save my father,” this someone says. She’s familiar, somehow. He shouldn’t know very many people with orange hair. “You will find a way out if you go down this corridor. It will be dangerous, but I know you will have a landing strategy.” She pushes something against him, and he raises his arms automatically to take it.

He looks down at the person she’s given him, and something in his mind clicks into place.

-

Oscar is small and heavy in his arms.

He moves through the smoke and fire—without thought, without destination. And without shoes, he realizes as he slides around the corner. It’s the one thing he chooses to focus on, because it’s ridiculous, because the floor is like ice on his feet, because the echo of an unworldly scream twists the shadows on the blinking red walls—because there are heavy footfalls closing in behind him.

He could do something, if he could use even one arm, if he could carry Oscar over his shoulder. But Oscar has broken bones, and despite all the movement that must be jarring his injuries, he doesn’t make a sound.

He isn’t a vengeful person. Not anymore, not for quite some time. He couldn’t deny vengeance brought satisfaction, but for him, it was fleeting and simply _not enough_ —it never fulfilled what he needed most, and it often brought worse than it gave.

But Oscar is broken and not moving and there’s no _shut up go away why did it have to be me what am I supposed to do how do I fit in do I belong here who am I who am I_ —

There’s a light at the end of this hall. Wind rolls down his way, high and howling.

He jumps.

The sky is burning. Black clouds, a red horizon. The frigid air bites through the thin clothes Salem was magnanimous enough to conjure, and he can barely breathe for the cold and the altitude.

For the first time in too long, falling through the snow whipping like shards of glass across his skin, his mind is quiet.

—

— 

Oscar wakes up warm—and squished.

The first thing he realizes is that he can’t really move, but that’s less shackles-and-bajillion-jointed-Grimm-appendages and more that he’s been tightly rolled into a bright yellow sleeping bag.

“Am I dead?” he mutters, closing his eyes again, grogginess threatening to pull him back to sleep. In his mind, it’s a fair question. The last time he was awake, he’d been in a lot of pain and pretty thoroughly done with the world bagging on him in particular. Hell, he can still taste blood.

Nothing hurts, though. Maybe he’s still out of it. Maybe the sleeping bag is helping?

“No,” says a familiar voice that sounds a little farther away than usual. “But not for lack of trying.”

Oscar frowns. “Are you trying to say something?”

“Not at all. Though I did enjoy ‘try rubbing it three times counterclockwise and swinging it in a circle under a blueberry bush on a moonless night.’”

It’s fifty-fifty whether or not he means it. Oscar can’t tell, so Oz is probably still distancing himself.

“I stole it,” he admits, even if Oz probably knows. “It’s what you said, last time she caught you. _That_ version of you. Whatever.”

The silence after that is long, and Oscar almost falls back asleep. “You remembered that,” Oz says wonderingly, like maybe he’d forgotten about it himself.

“Yeah. Turns out it’s a lot easier to lose track of myself in your memories when I’m getting beat up.”

There’s a moment of tense silence. “I’m sorry.”

Yeah, there it is. Oscar expected it, but he just can’t take it. “Is that just automatic for you at this point? Do you think it helps?” He wiggles, trying to escape his cocoon so he can storm out or kick a wall or something. “Why should I care if you’re sorry when it’s all your—”

Something shifts horribly under the left side of his chest and he makes an involuntary, strangled cry. He collapses back, gasping in breaths that his lungs won’t hold.

“Oscar, please try to relax.”

“ _Shut up._ ” He tries to turn, but the pain in his chest pulls and he bites his lip to prevent the sob from escaping.

“ _Please don’t move_ ,” Oz says, a note of panic in his voice. “I’m not done yet.”

The question dies in Oscar’s throat as footsteps draw close across the floorboards.

“Oz,” he says, a trembling whisper, and he hates it, but— “He’s back, they’re back—”

The footsteps stop. Oscar’s heart is thudding painfully in his chest.

“Oscar, we’re the only people here.”

“No, can’t you hear them? They’re—”

Something does come into his line of vision then, peeking over the top of the sleeping bag. A head of messy gray hair, and a pair of concerned, brown eyes. Something about this is familiar, something—it reminds him—

“I really am dead,” he concludes.

“You really aren’t,” says the hair.

“How can I be _seeing you_ if I’m not dead? Unless this is another of Jinn’s—whatever she does.”

“Jinn can only show what is and has been. She can’t fabricate.” Ozpin walks until he’s beside Oscar, and then he sits, crossing his legs. “We’re separated, for the most part. It wasn’t a clean procedure. I don’t know what sort of effect this is going to have on you.”

Oscar doesn’t _get it_. He’s had this ghost in his head for so long, has grown used to the resentment, to the muddy pool slowly spreading into his memories, and now— “What _happened_?”

Ozpin takes a moment before answering. “I wasn’t entirely conscious for most of it, but we were in Professor Polendina’s aura transferring machine. Salem used the Relic of Creation to do... _this_. She must also have used her magic to facilitate the process, to separate us properly.” Ozpin flexes his fingers, stares at them blankly before putting down his hand. Oscar feels the weight of it on the sleeping bag. “She—I can feel...well. It’s no matter.” He shakes his head, as if clearing his thoughts. “You were out for quite a long time.”

“Because of you?”

Ozpin looks at him, face unreadable—except it isn’t. Not for him. Even though Oscar has never actually seen it, he knows exactly what it means. He’s felt it. “You couldn’t surface after Hazel—after the third time. It’s as you said: you lost track of yourself. It was better, to lose track. You had no desire to return. So I surfaced in your place.”

“You could’ve just left it alone,” but even as he says this, he knows it isn’t true. “What could they have done to us like that?”

Ozpin’s expression tightens. “If she knew you were too far gone, she would have done far worse to reach us.”

Somehow, just vaguely, Oscar _knows_ she would have. That she’s done so before.

“How does your chest feel now?”

It feels—just a little sore. He risks a wiggle, and nothing happens. Nothing happens in the rest of him, either. He’s fine.

“I don’t get it.”

“In the old world,” Ozpin begins, half taking on his familiar old man lecturing mode, “magic was a part of every living creature on the planet. Some people found talent in creation, in life. Others—like me, or Ozma, if you prefer—were better with other things. But even people with little talent for healing had ways of getting around that. It was easier to heal one’s own injuries than it was another’s, you see.”

When Ozpin stands, he does so gingerly, with a hand braced against his left side. That’s when Oscar sees the dark stains on his shirt. In the meager light, they look red.

His eyes widen.

“Get some sleep,” Ozpin says, sliding down carefully against the corner of the room, next to a broken window. He stays within Oscar’s sight, and Oscar doesn’t know how to feel about that. To be known, even now, when they aren’t sharing their existence anymore. “I’ll wake you in a few hours. We can’t stay too long. Salem will be looking.”

Oscar doesn’t know what to say. If it would mean anything, even if he does.

But there is something else.

“Why did she want to separate us?”

“Ah. Well.” Ozpin’s voice is dry. “The reunion wasn’t living up to her expectations.”

—

What feels like hours in, Oscar still can’t fall asleep. And he knows Ozpin isn’t. He’s not sure how he knows. It’s just a feeling.

“Thanks,” he says, before he loses the nerve.

Ozpin’s response doesn’t come for some time. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

Oscar is glad, too. Being a human punching bag _sucked_. “Is it really okay, though? You don’t have much magic left. I thought you’d wanna save it for an emergency.”

“I’m a little scared to ask what you believe constitutes more of an emergency than internal bleeding,” Ozpin says with some of his old wryness. “Anyway, it takes less than you think.”

“Were you, uh, healing me back there, too?”

He can hear Ozpin shift in his corner. “I would have, but Salem would have taken notice. We—recognize the feeling of each other’s magic.” Ozpin’s tone is even, but Oscar can hear the slight strain in it. “She would have been worse, if she knew you could tap into it. Or if she suspected I was really there.”

“It’s because of me that you couldn’t do anything, isn’t it?”

“No, Oscar,” Ozpin says, immediate and gentle. “It’s nothing to do with you. There was little I could have done with either of them there. ”

“But you’d have had a better chance if it wasn’t me.”

“Oscar—”

“Would you have been able to end it? I mean— _really_ end it?”

Ozpin stays silent.

“You said that I didn’t want to surface.”

“Yes.”

“Would you—if I had asked you to—”

“Yes.” There’s no hesitation in it, but it still comes softly, pained.

It’s almost comforting, to know he would have had a choice. “How would you know I’d mean it?”

“Things said and done in the heat of a moment are impulsive, but they contain elements of truth. You would have meant it at the time, had you asked.” There is a long pause. “And I would have asked you again, to be certain.”

Oscar looks at him, nothing but a profile in the shadows. “You’ve done it before.”

“Yes.” Ozpin shifts again, leaning his head against the wall. “Get some rest, Oscar. You need it.”

“I—yeah, okay.” He closes his eyes. “Thanks for the ugly sleeping bag.”

He hears a quiet noise of surprise, followed by soft, deep laughter. “I’d like to see you do better.”

—

—

“You found a sleeping bag, but not proper clothes?”

Ozpin doesn’t grab the steel bar he tugged from some wreckage earlier, but only because he saw Penny fly in from the distance. He thinks she might have picked the angle on purpose. He smiles, wan, and only feels slightly self-conscious in the rags he hasn’t yet replaced. “Hello, Miss Polendina. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Professor Ozpin,” she greets.

It takes him a moment to process it, and it feels like a glove that has seen better days. “I think just ‘Ozpin’ will suffice. I’m no longer a professor.”

“But you are still a professor, Professor Ozpin. According to the official databanks, you are only missing, not presumed dead.”

“Oh. How—heartening?” In his considerable personal experience, ‘missing’ often does translate to ‘dead’. Between the two, ‘missing’ just looks better in writing.

“You two were not at the evacuation point,” Penny says, tone somehow conveying both curiosity and accusation.

“Oscar needed some rest, first.” He notices her pointed look at the bloodstains on his clothes. “So did I.”

She nods, apparently satisfied, then crouches down by Oscar and pokes his cheek. “Oscar. It is time to wake up.”

“Nooo,” says the lump that is Oscar, not entirely conscious. Penny doubles down on the poking.

“How is your father?” It’s not an adequate question. He feels guilty at how much of an afterthought it is; he hadn’t been conscious enough to realize Pietro was even there. And even though it’s likely that she left him relatively unharassed, being a captive of Salem in any capacity is a draining experience.

“He is very mad that his hat was lost in the explosion, but he is otherwise well.” Her fingers are a blur in their endeavor to wake Oscar, but Oscar doesn’t so much as budge. “We will go meet with everyone as soon as Oscar wakes up.”

Ozpin nods. He stands, brushing dust off his pants. “While you do that, I think I’ll rummage for something warmer to wear.”

“Hey, kid, what’s taking so long?” A voice calls from the ground floor. “These people up to move or what?”

Ozpin stares at the doorway, hoping the voice isn’t as familiar as his suddenly panicking brain makes it seem.

“Oh yes!” She turns to him, glowing. “I picked up Ruby’s uncle on the way here!”

He keeps staring.

“I found him stuck in a pile of debris!”

This, he thinks she’s saying deliberately louder. It would be impressive if he hadn’t already devoted all of his energy into raging inner turmoil.

Footsteps sound up the stairway outside. “Did you just say what I think you said? Hey, random stranded citizens of Mantle, I had everything under control, okay—”

He has two seconds to make a decision. Either jump out the window, or die again on the spot.

Unfortunately, two seconds isn’t actually any time for that sort of decision making, so all he does is stand there when Qrow walks through the doorway, and stops in it as if he’s hit an invisible wall.

Qrow looks tired. He’s paler than usual, and the dark smudges beneath his eyes make them seem hollow, dull. Even at his worst, Qrow has been known to run purely on world-rending spite, but there’s none of that in him now. Now, he just seems _lost_.

_“Oz?”_

This isn’t fair. He’d been so close. He could have made it most of the way without seeing Qrow, but of course Qrow found his way to him instead.

Ozpin hasn’t really seen him since that day with Jinn. They’ve avoided each other—that is, _Oscar_ has avoided him. Ozpin has surfaced from time to time enough to know that much.

“How— _what_ —” Qrow walks in, quickly.

Ozpin can’t help it. He steps back into the wall, hard enough to bruise.

Immediately, Qrow stops. He looks—

Ozpin turns away. He can’t do this.

“Miss Polendina,” Ozpin says with a calm that feels liable to break any moment, “please go on ahead with Oscar and Qrow. I’ll find my own way.”

“Oh. Do you know—”

He slips out the window and blindly vaults over the railing, into the ruined city.

—

Penny has her priorities, and none of them lie with him. He isn’t worried about her returning.

One would think it’d be easy to find clothes in the vast wreckage of a major city, but so far he hasn’t had much luck. Or if he does find any, they’re too small. At this point, the cold is truly beginning to threaten his twelve-hour-old bones. He’ll settle for scraps and a staple gun if he has to—

“Hey.”

Ozpin turns instinctively—and gets a high velocity garment to the face.

“Qrow,” he says, peeling the long-sleeved shirt away and giving it a critical eye—a plain light blue, he can live with that—before buttoning it on over his thinner shirt. “What are you doing here?”

“Helping you look.” To his credit, he’s looking through a pile a good distance away from Ozpin’s. “Stork man like you, we might be here a while.”

“You should go back.”

“No.” He tosses a pack of socks at Ozpin. “Penny and Oscar told me what happened.” That seems to be all he’s inclined to say on the matter.

_It’s good to see you, Oz._

Ozpin can feel a headache coming on. And here he was hoping that particular trait wouldn’t catch on this new body. “Why did you have to get stuck here of all places?”

“Hey, for the record, you try having a whole city fall on you—”

“Why are you doing this?”

Qrow looks up, holding two beaten toasters. “Doing what?”

 _Being here._ “You should be helping with the evacuation.”

He doesn’t respond for a while. The toasters are tossed, and he continues sifting through his chosen lump. “I thought you’d be helping, too. But then, I see you prioritizing something weird, and I can’t help but be suspicious.”

“Wanting to be warm is not weird.” Aura is no substitute for fabric.

“And you know, with Salem’s whale hanging around and Atlas still floating even though it’s kinda smoky, the picture starts coming into place.” A piece of wood almost the length of him goes over his shoulder. “But it probably isn't any of that. Maybe I just know you _really_ well. It seems like the kind of stupid thing you’d do.”

“Qrow.”

“I know you’re going back. You can’t take her on like this.”

Ozpin laughs. “You don’t think I figured that out the first time around? You should understand. You saw it.”

“Oz—”

“I destroyed her, and it didn’t take—will never take—”

“Then why are you going?” Qrow starts forward, but stops before he takes a single step.

Ozpin turns to the sky, to look at Atlas’ darkened ruin. She’s there. He knows it. “She could bring the remains of Atlas down on the survivors of Mantle, but she hasn’t yet. She’s waiting, Qrow. She hasn’t had me in sight, in physical reach, for over a hundred years. She could kill them, but their suffering won’t be satisfying enough unless she can see me react. She wants to see me realize it’s my fault.”

“Oz—”

“But she won’t wait indefinitely.”

Something heavy is draped over his head. Further inspection reveals it is a coat of the very warm and comfortable variety.

He does not want to be grateful to Qrow.

“If you seriously think I’m going to let you go—“

“Let? Do I need your permission?”

Qrow throws a pair of real pants at him, which he snatches out of the air. “Don’t be an asshole.”

“Pot,” Ozpin says, pointing rudely.

“For fuck’s sake, Oz! I just—I don’t want—“

Ozpin waits. It’s the thing he knows how to do best, when it comes to Qrow.

Qrow worries at his lower lip, then throws his hands up in defeat. “I don’t want you to get hurt, okay?”

Oh. Oh, that’s _extremely_ unfair.

He stands there, taking it in, but it’s—too much. Not enough. He doesn’t know.

So he starts walking away.

“What—what the _fuck_ , dude?” He can hear Qrow shuffling down from his pile, swearing as he no doubt trips on something or other. “Wait, Oz, forget me, okay, please would you worry—fuck, come _on—_ “

Something far bigger and heavier than an article of clothing knocks him on his face, far too close to a puddle for comfort. He struggles for a bit, rolling until Qrow is pinned under him. He plants his hands on the ground on either side of Qrow’s head, and this close he can easily the new lines of exhaustion, the tightness in his eyes—

This is all so familiar it hurts. He wants to touch him so badly—

Ozpin swallows painfully. “How do I forget you?”

Qrow freezes, looking stricken, eyes wide with emotions Ozpin won’t allow himself to entertain.

“You were right,” Ozpin says softly. “I am the worst thing that has ever happened to you. And I’m sorry for it. I will always be sorry for it. But I would like you to know that none of it was in vain. I hope you know that, somewhere in you. You helped many people who were unable to help themselves. You made a difference for them. That’s the thing about progress, you know. It’s the small differences.”

It feels like a lifetime ago that Qrow once made so many small differences in his life. But in a way, it really was a lifetime ago.

Standing is difficult, knowing this is the closest he will ever be to Qrow again. When he walks away this time, nothing holds him back.

— 

In the end, it takes very little effort to find her.

He feels her magic laced in his blood, in the marrow of his bones, in the beating of his new heart. And the feeling only intensifies as he draws nearer the vault. She’s waiting in front of the open door, and she’s alone. No Hazel, no Grimm.

“Does it hurt?” he asks honestly as he steps out of the elevator. It’s quiet here, even with the hum of Atlas’ engines. “You lost quite a bit of it. When I gave most of my magic away, I fell ill and died soon after. It was unfortunate. I’d just had a garden planted, you see. I was looking forward to the eggplants.”

He’d been looking forward to the tomatoes, actually. But Salem has always hated eggplant, and Ozpin’s nerves went to pieces when Qrow so obligingly stomped on them, so petulance it is.

She turns slowly, and it takes everything in him not to pause a single step. She has one hand supporting her elbow while the other gathers a cascade of shadows. He feels nothing from it; it’s an idle gesture.

“It turns out there’s quite a bit of strain involved in the act of taking an enormous portion of oneself and cutting it right off. I didn’t stop feeling most of the side effects for several lifetimes, and some of them I suspect are chronic.”

Salem watches him, impassive, as he comes to a stop in the center. He may be feeling a little numb, but he will never be so courageous as to stand within touching distance of her. He isn’t that strong, or that foolish.

“If you like, I can tell you what they are, so you’ll be prepared. For instance, in a few days, your hips may suddenly feel incredibly unhappy with the way you’ve been sitting—”

“You came back,” she says. She hasn’t moved an inch from her spot.

“You knew I would.”

“Thousands of years, and you never fail to be predictable in at least this. That has always been your greatest failing, my dear Ozma. Lost causes.” The shadows in her hand swirl into each other before separating into four very familiar forms. “You always try, and you always fail.”

She blows the shadows to him, and they fall into nothing at his feet, leaving echoes of laughter. There is a part of him, long since packed into a small box and hidden away deep inside, that feels like it’s splintering.

The rest of his soul aches.

“You’re giving me a bit too much credit,” he says casually, digging his nails into his palm. “There were times I didn’t try, remember? You see, hips can hinder—“

The blast of magic grazes his arm, singing through the space he’d been occupying half a second before.

“ _That’s_ different,” Salem says thoughtfully, throwing another beam, which Ozpin sidesteps. “This meatsuit’s Semblance?”

“If you want to be technical, it was the previous one.” His odds are beyond abysmal, but having time on his side might allow him _something_ yet. He begins to wind his magic—Salem’s magic. It’s significantly different from his own. Far heavier, an almost shackled feeling. There is something about it that is unfathomable, a depth with no bottom, a void that stares back. He shakes his head, trying to concentrate. “It’s something you never quite understood, isn’t it?”

The ground pulls and shifts, sprouting a series of jagged spikes he very much doesn’t like. “I know you too well, Ozma. You’re stalling. You think you can hold my attention until they escape. There are thousands of people down in that extremely targetable basin and you expect to occupy me until they scurry out? There is nothing here but barren cold. They have nowhere to go. If I don’t kill them, they will simply die in the wasteland. I’ve known you to be brazen and foolhardy, and your arrogance is always pushing new limits, but even I must admit my surprise. Do you think a ploy this pathetic will prevent me from destroying everything you’ve worked to build here?“

About the longest lasting things any version of him has ever accomplished are the reintroduction of certain types of architectural arches and disposable hygiene items. He has placed and perpetuated general ideals through the years, the groundwork that had to be laid before things could begin in earnest, but everything that was built here in Atlas and Mantle—everything built anywhere—was built by _people_.

Sometimes, he thinks it’s rather remarkable how often she vacillates between acknowledgement and belittlement where it concerns the people of this world, considering she was the one who spent millenia watching them crawl back from the primordial ether left in the wake of utter devastation. These are the people who returned after the gods had forsaken them, who took what was left of the gifts from the old world and painstakingly carved spaces for themselves in the new. Their collective resiliency is what makes them thrive despite living in an environment of unending hostility.

And that she would attribute so much to him, even as a taunt—

“When will you realize that I am as much Ozma as I am not?”

For a second, the wave of her magic spikes unevenly.

“You’ve remained unchanged, and you will always be this way. But I— _he_ hasn’t. Won’t. It has been thousands of years, and countless lifetimes taken from other people. We _always_ change. Some traits dilute, others strengthen, and sometimes drastically different information falls in our ocean—and the cycle ebbs and flows all over again.”

Her attacks have grown more erratic. They’re larger, frantic.

“The truth is, I am often _more_ than I am _one_. And I think that might scare you more than it does me. Because then you would have to confront yourself and ask the questions you have been avoiding since the old world was purged.”

“You don’t know anything, you weren’t here—“

“Where can your anger go? When will you feel that you’ve had enough? When does this end for you?”

“It was _you_. We were happy, we were _whole_ together—you ruined _everything—_ “

“Ozma went back for you.” He pauses. The splinter in the box cracks, and he realizes he has to accept this, too. “ _I_ went back for you. But I wasn’t enough, by then. And the gods knew. Do you realize?”

“ _Shut up,_ ” she screams, hurling unstable bolts.

He pushes closer, letting them slash into his skin. The magic in his core is pulled taut, but it isn’t enough yet.

Salem pauses, gathering energy into her hands. “We had everything. Four beautiful children, and an entire world we could have given them. They wanted for nothing. I gave them love that I _never_ had, love that I could hardly believe I was capable of giving.” She catches his coat with a spike and lashes out with a wave of glittering light. He stumbles sideways, but it still nicks a shallow cut into his neck. “And then you had the audacity to try sneaking them away. _My_ children. You left me no choice, Ozma.”

“You could have let us go. They could have lived.”

“You chose to leave me. The responsibility is yours.”

“It’s _ours_.” He still doesn’t know what happened that night, which of them did it. What stray blast caught them, if they died together, or if they watched each other fall, picked apart by their own parents. It’s the one thing he’s never dared to ask Jinn, and of course, Jinn has taken many opportunities to remind him.

He moves past another serrated wave, and stops inches from Salem’s face. “You could have let us go,” he repeats softly, letting his Semblance wind the molecules around Salem to a near stop. “And I should have let you kill me from the start.”

It takes only an instant.

The magic in him unwinds in a snap—

His aura shatters, and his Semblance drops immediately, releasing Salem. Without losing any of her momentum, she takes his arm.

By the time he realizes what she’s doing, it’s already too late. The magic in her hand flares hot and white, and it burns into his skin. His mouth opens, slack with shock and unable to scream.

Almost hysterically, he thinks he should be used to this by now. It’s happened enough, hasn’t it? He knows what it feels like to have fire on his arm, his face—

He’s shaking, but he can’t move. He _can’t_.

She pulls him in close and presses an almost gentle kiss to the corner of his lips, amid the acrid smell of burnt flesh between them. “A reminder.”

With her other hand, she slams him back with a blast of magic full to the chest. He manages to slide to a stop on his feet, but falls to his knees immediately, heaving, blood dribbling from his mouth in thick rivulets.

“What an unfortunate loss of control. You were so close to doing—something. But I suppose my magic doesn’t agree with your constitution.” The light of Salem’s held magic draws sharp shadows across her face. Her red eyes burn cold. “Not that it would ever have mattered.”

She lets it go.

The light is too bright, and the ringing in his ears is deafening.

—

— 

On one hand, tanking stuff with aura is pretty cool. On the other hand, no it isn’t.

Okay, the cane helped, too.

Between being punched by Hazel and being punched by some weird unspecified glowy pain blast, Oscar still isn’t really sure which is worse even after his extensive experiences, but he also doesn’t have to pick because it all sucks anyway.

He’s thrown into Ozpin, and they barrel back, close to the edge of the platform. He’s getting.a huge sense of deja vu about this whole thing.

“Surprise after surprise.” Salem’s voice comes through the cloud of dust. Oscar is really grateful to that cloud right now. “And here I thought you would have taken the opportunity to leave this place far behind. Are you really such a glutton for punishment? You may not be the latest vessel any longer, but I doubt Hazel will be picky in this instance.”

 _Jerk_. “Shut up,” he says in his best I’m-scared-out-of-my-mind voice, which is not far from how he’s actually feeling anyway. He waves his—Oz’s—cane, whipping off the trailing smoke from the tip.

“Oscar?” Ozpin’s voice is a wet croak of pain.

Oscar risks a glance behind him. Ozpin is trying to stand, but has only managed a sort of wobbly curl into himself. “Stop moving,” he hisses.

“Wha—what are you—“

“What’s it look like?”

Ozpin falls onto his side with a soft grunt. “Like I’m hallucinating.”

“Just—stop, okay? It worked, whatever you did. You’re done.”

“Nngh,” Ozpin says, which Oscar takes as an affirmative response.

“You do know I can hear you?” The dust has finally abandoned Oscar. Salem looks as awful and creepy as he remembered.

He really hates this.

“Why did you come back, Oscar Pine? You’re free of Ozma and his curse—for now, at least. You’re the very first, in fact. Lucky you. And yet, you’re here. Is there something you wish to prove? Have you come to collect some wayward belonging?”

“Uh.” Oscar gives Ozpin another glance. “You could say that.”

The ceiling explodes.

—

— 

Qrow is so glad Penny is on their side. He’s never before seen anyone break through thirty floors of steel and concrete with a _smile_.

Well. He’s never seen anyone break through thirty floors of steel and concrete at all, so he’s even more glad Penny isn’t inclined to use that specific ability on him.

Penny wraps herself in a barrier of sheer cold, hurtling at Salem like a very blue, very determined missile. Qrow slides into a landing, shedding his transformation as he stops within a foot of Oscar. He looks over Oscar’s shoulder, and feels a heavy lump form in his throat at the sight of the burn that has taken Ozpin’s entire right arm.

He shuffles over, hands clenching for the lack of anything he can do. “Oz?”

“Qrow,” Ozpin says, voice faint and mostly breath. “I think—I’m a wayward belonging.”

What the fuck?

Oscar makes various noises and gestures, and eventually just shoos Qrow forward. “Just take him, please.”

Qrow approaches him, hesitant. They don’t have time for it, but Qrow remembers the way Ozpin had backed into the wall of that burnt out house. Like there was no way out, like he was going to be sick. But even though he broadcasts his movements as clearly as possible, Ozpin’s eyes don’t track him. They’re staring ahead, sightless and hazy with pain.

Carefully, he gathers Ozpin to him, trying not to feel too uneasy at the complete lack of protest.

“I know you said Oz isn’t great with plans when it comes to himself,” Oscar says tentatively, “but what plan did you have for getting out?”

“Penny only said she’d get us in.” Not even twenty feet away, Penny is doing her utmost to pulverize Salem. It wouldn’t do much good, but if she can manage it, it’d take Salem time to regenerate. “I think she might have intended to get us out the same way.”

Oscar stares at the ceiling. “Yeah, no.” Then he looks down, over the edge of the cliff. “Not this again.”

“That’s a way out? Wait—what do you mean again?”

“No, this place is falling, we’d just get crushed under it.”

“Answer the other—“

“You came for _him_?”

Qrow whips around and finds Salem’s gaze set on them—as well as a massive beam of multicolored light.

Oscar is already diving to the right. His reflexes are on point, and Qrow’s technically are but also with far more flail hopping given the weight in his arms and the unexpected immediacy of having to avoid a murderous rainbow.

“Why?” Salem conjures bright, red light into her hands. It’s the kind of light that looks like it might be worse than the concentrated disco. “Why did you come for him?”

“I came for him.” Oscar sounds like he can’t really believe it himself. “And Qrow just came. And Penny came for all of us, that’s what she does—“

“What is the _point_?”

Penny swoops down in a flurry of snow in front of Qrow, and looks over her shoulder at Salem. “The point is that Atlas will drop on nothing.”

Qrow can see the realization playing over Salem’s face. He doesn’t know what Ozpin did, but from the way she’s going through the Seven Stages of Absolute Rage, she certainly does.

“And there is no one on Atlas either,” Penny adds, like the final, belated nail in a coffin.

Qrow can tell she’s enjoying this.

“We should really escape right now,” Oscar says, looking around frantically as Salem gathers her fury into more red light.

“Yes, we should,” Penny says thoughtfully. Then she tackles them.

Later, not really much later after this, Qrow will wonder if this was Penny’s plan all along, and he will secretly envy her way better brain, even though he will understand that it is technically a plan only Penny could pull off.

But that will come after he stops panicking about being locked in another dimension.

It happens quickly. He’s falling through, and lands on something white and soft that could be snow, but isn’t really all that cold. Penny does—whatever the maidens do to lock their respective doors, and then nothing. No more keening red light, no writhing shadows, no screeching. Just pure, uneasy silence. It rings in his ears.

He looks between Oscar and Penny, and unconsciously pulls Ozpin in tighter against himself.

“Well, then. Fuck.”


End file.
